Tale Genji Seidensticker Ebook
About The Tale of GenjiIn the early eleventh century Murasaki Shikibu, a lady in the Heian court of Japan, wrote what many consider to be the world’s first novel, more than three centuries before Chaucer. The Heian era (794—1185) is recognized as one of the very greatest periods in Japanese literature, and The Tale of Genji is not only the unquestioned prose masterpiece of that period but also the most lively and absorbing account we have of the intricate, exquisite, highly ordered court culture that made such a masterpiece possible.Genji is the favorite son of the emperor but also a man of dangerously passionate impulses. In his highly refined world, where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, his shifting alliances and secret love affairs create great turmoil and very nearly destroy him.Edward Seidensticker’s translation of Lady Murasaki’s splendid romance has been honored throughout the English-speaking world for its fluency, scholarly depth, and deep literary tact and sensitivity. Author EssayLittle is known with certainty about The Tale of Genji except that it has existed and been held in high esteem for almost a millennium. We will probably never known exactly when the author lived, and almost certainly we will never know exactly when she wrote her book and in what form it emerged from her pen – or, more properly, her brush. Most if not all of it was probably written in the early eleventh century AD by a court lady known as Murasaki Shikibu.
The Tale Of Genji Best Translation
A diary from the mid eleventh century establishes that it existed by then as a work of ‘more than fifty chapters’. The accepted count today is fifty-four. There is no holograph of even the smallest fragment.
All recensions must be based on texts from several centuries later.
Tale Genji Seidensticker Ebook List
Kagero Nikki, translated here as The Gossamer Years, belongs to the same period as the celebrated Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikuibu.This remarkably frank autobiographical diary and personal confession attempts to describe a difficult relationship as it reveals two tempestuous decades of the author's unhappy marriage and her growing indignation at rival wives and mistresses. Too impetuous to be satisfied as a subsidiary wife, this beautiful (and unnamed) noblewoman of the Heian dynasty protests the marriage system of her time in one of Japanese literature's earliest attempts to portray difficult elements of the predominant social hierarchy. A classic work of early Japanese prose, The Gossamer Years is an important example of the development of Heian literature, which, at its best, represents an extraordinary flowering of realistic expression, an attempt, unique for its age, to treat the human condition with frankness and honesty. A timeless and intimate glimpse into the culture of ancient Japan, this translation by Edward Seidensticker paints a revealing picture of married life in the Heian period.